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I don’t get out of my city very often. I have a job that forces me to work weekends and I don’t get paid vacation time, so the cost of a weekend trip is often more than it’s worth.

But I said “to heck with it!” and let a friend whisk me away to Montreal for a few days for the basketball game (I ADORE basketball). I also thought it would be a good opportunity to try Tinder in a new environment – somewhere where I’d meet people with zero mutual friends; where I might get to play the tourist; where I’d get to flex my atrophied Francophone muscles.

I woke up on Saturday morning and told my friend “I want to go for brunch! Do you think I can make a Tinder brunch date happen within half an hour?”

She laughed. She’s heard all my best Tinder stories and assured me that if anyone could, it would be me.

I swiped right at anyone attractive, with text under their photos and who’d been online in the past ten minutes. I had ten matches within five minutes, but based on conversation I wasn’t especially excited by any of them. Then I saw him.

Lanky as fuck, with floppy light brown hair and enormous blue eyes. Pouty swollen Lana del Rey lips and a bio in French with the line “Parce que prendre des bières/cafés avec des inconnus c’est souvent amusant! … Also pretty decent English with classic Québec accent!” I read that to mean that he looks at Tinder as an adventure to take with strangers.

I showed my friend his picture after I swiped and matched and said “I want this one!” When Tinder is involved, I very frequently get what I want.

“Cuuute! But he looks like Catch.” She said. I shrugged. I have a type.

I sent the first message, in French, inviting him out to brunch. No preamble.

He accepted, with the caveat that he’d never met anyone on Tinder before. I promised I’d be gentle. He told me to meet him at his favourite brunch spot near the Mont Royal metro station. I hopped on the subway, a little giddy.

When I showed up, I looked around and asked the waitress in French if he’d already been seated. She brought me to him and he was even cuter in person. 6’3 with a cyclist’s physique and a pink t-shirt under a grey h&m hoodie… the same Chucks as mine but twice the size.

I said, in French, “Welcome to your first tinder date!”
He blushed, and asked me to keep it down.
I said “Oh, sorry. Oh man isn’t it cool catching up with each other for the first time since we were in jail together?”
He laughed, and I could tell he was super nervous.

We ordered, and I asked questions about his life. Between the two languages we could understand each other perfectly. We talked about travelling and math and consent and music and family. When we realised that we we’d finished our meals, we ran in the rain to a microbrewery and drank samples of every beer that they had to offer so that we could talk more.

He taught me some Quebecois curse words (all of them religious) and said that there weren’t a lot of gendered slurs. He identifies as a feminist (swoon!) and we got to talk about the power behind the word “cunt,” which was really enlightening coming from someone whose first language doesn’t have an equivalent.

We talked about online dating and how he doesn’t get many matches. I didn’t believe it, and he said “I’m not everyone’s type.” I told him he was mine. “Ahhh,” he nodded, “T’aimes les Grands Slacks.”

He explained that Grand Slack is the Joual term for a tall lanky dude. He kept gesturing to his own physique as I touched my knee to his.

He slipped his hand onto my thigh and said “You know… I don’t live far from here…”

“Oh, Grand Slack,” I said suavely, “I have a hotel room.”

His eyes flashed like goddamned sapphires as he dropped a handful of cash on the table and guided me to the bus stop. I sent a quick “clear the room please!” text to my friend and we were on our way.

As we sat down, he kissed me. Just a small stolen bisou, but it had been just long enough since I’ve had any kind of PDA that I melted into the royal blue seats.

As we walked (holding hands) from the bus stop, he sighed and admitted he didn’t have condoms. I said “It’s a good thing I’m not going to fuck you, then.” He admitted he only had an hour and as half before he was due to eat family dinner in the suburbs. I told him that just making out doesn’t take that long.

I don’t remember much about the elevator ride up to the 8th floor (I hate elevators, so it’s easier than making out in the stairwell), but I remember opening our suite’s door and throwing him onto my bed.

We kissed gently at first and I started undressing him. I asked him to be cautious of my fresh tattoo and he was very gentle; as it’s a French phrase, he joked that he’d proof-read it for me. I couldn’t keep my mouth off of his near-flawless skin, and I kissed him up and down his lean, firm torso pausing only to ask him in French about a few scars (a cycling accident in Vietnam).

When I finally saw him fully naked I kicked myself for not running to a pharmacy beforehand. We made complete messes of each other and I asked him to teach me different sexy phrases in French.

He showered quickly after we were finished and ran off to the suburbs. I have him on Facebook, but it was a beautiful novel encounter with a beautiful novel man. I invited him to chat me up if he’s ever in Toronto (I hope he does) but even if I never see him again I will look at this like the the most linguistically educational travel hookup I’ve ever had.

Grand Slack may rank with Gunner and Catch for my favourite first Tinder date, and that’s pretty great.

I’ve gone on about fifty first Tinder dates in the year I’ve had the app. That’s more than the number of times I’ve seen my lifelong favourite band in concert (though not by much). That’s more than the number of other first dates I’ve had combined.

I’ve had a lot of fun and met some truly adventurous, hilarious and interesting people, but I’ve only been limerant of two of my Tinder paramours: The first date, and the most recent.

The first, whom I’ll call Gunner, deserves a post of his own. I adored him but put him through hell because he was my first partner after Harold and I opened up our relationship; a failed experiment at his expense. He jumped through so many hoops for me in the few months we gave it a go and I like to think I helped him work through some resentment he had over his ex. It must have worked, though, because Gunner is making one of my best friends very happy – they celebrated six months together recently and I take full credit. (note: they do not give me full credit, but we all know I set them up, okay? okay.)

The second though? Ooof. I’m calling him Catch. Not just because he is pretty much an ideal person (at least on paper) but because I know that when he breaks my heart I’m going to relate way too hard to this song:

(Allie X is a treasure, btw, and you should listen to everything she’s ever done)

His profile made him sound like he just wanted to show off – he stated his (impressive) profession, his height (excessively tall), and his favourite dessert (also my favourite dessert). His pics were typical: suit pic, pouty selfie, darkly-lit guitar pic… but Catch looks like every unrequited crush I’ve ever had, from the former frontman of my favourite local cover band to my favourite basketball player with a little bit of my high school best guy friend thrown in; like Jeff Winger from Community meets Robb Stark from Game of Thrones. He is very educated in fields semi-related to mine and has one of those jobs that impresses moms. He’s well-rounded (plays guitar! and sports too!) and is as obnoxious as I am. He’s also not on social media, which is frustrating but I’ll deal with it. I’m convinced I Weird Science’d him into existence.

My profile asks people to talk to me about glasses if they need an icebreaker, and he asked me a question about stemware as a wedding gift for his sister. After dozens of “So… Tell me about glasses lol” first messages, I was all about it.

Most importantly, he likes Veronica Mars, which is possibly the most attractive quality any person can ever have.

Our first non-tinder text conversation involved covert references to favourite video games and old flash cartoons from 2002. He got every reference and we accused each other of being hired by our friends to heal us from our fairly recent breakups. He texted me the next day and said “I can’t stop thinking about you.” I felt the same way, so we met up for midnight milkshakes at a diner halfway between karaoke, his work (where he’d just finished his rotation) and his condo. We talked until 4:00 am. He offered to let me crash at his place and was a complete gentleman (though I later found out that it was because he didn’t have condoms).

The next day I texted our mutual friends who had only glowing things to say (with the exception of an ex of mine whose other ex was Catch’s roommate and remembered only bad hair and combat choreography).

We had to wait for our second date because he had to go home for a bachelor party (they played Diablo III the whole time and he texted me every time he won). I was the first person he saw when he returned and I showed him my favourite downtown parks where we exchanged Community quotations and discussed the cultural significance of The Simpsons. I got to use the “You’re more handsome than the guy who’s famous for being handsome!” line and actually mean it.

He had sent me a text beforehand saying “This is going to sound RIDICULOUSLY presumptuous… But I have not had a chance to get to a drug store or equivalent… so if sex is at all on the table… You should maybe bring something… Don’t tell me if it’s on the table though! That way I can still have the joy of being all ‘Will we? Won’t we? What if she’s changed her mind? etc.’ (Yes, I know, I’m romantic to the core).”

So we went back to his place where we had amazing, safe sex in an overwhelming number of positions. Like, the kind of sex that could ruin sex with other people. I climbed him like a tree and he gave me the best workout I’ve had since my last bike ride out to the 905.

He confessed he doesn’t generally do the casual sex thing, and I told him that I’ve been over it for a while but haven’t met anyone I’d want to date exclusively in a long time.

I spent the whole next day with a big stupid grin on my face, even if sitting down was the best kind of uncomfortable. My coworker called me on it and had no idea how to handle it; she knows that I don’t gush about my dates.

The third date happened after I received this text:

SO Catch, in one text, made a pretty compelling case for heteromonogamy.

I took him to my favourite pizza place, we watched the movie, he insisted I spend the night…

I woke up the next morning to him sitting on his couch, playing “Odds Are” by the Barenaked Ladies on a beat-up teal acoustic guitar. I sang along and thought about how perfect that moment was.

I’m trying not to read into this too much, but I’ve always been on to talk myself out of anything good. I’m at least using this giddiness as a sign that I should pare down the less-exciting people in my harem. I don’t have time to spend making out with people who don’t make me smile like a doof every time I think about them.